161–170 of 389 posts
The most remarkable aspect of bitcoin is that if Satoshi is a single person, it's the first time in history someone has become a billionaire by themselves. It's not quite that clear cut, but it's not too far off.
“Rosenstreich at online trading firm Swissquote said bitcoin’s surge harks to the surprises of the U.K. referendum on European Union membership and President Trump’s election. “We have underestimated the populist movements,” he said. “There is growing unease on how central banks and governments are managing fiat currencies. Ordinary people globally understand why a decentralized asset is the ultimate safe haven.”” Th…
I've seen comments saying "unlike bitcoin, gold has intrinsic value!" on HN for years. It never made sense to me. Like Bitcoin, gold is only valuable because we think it is and we want it to be (and because it's relatively scarce, too, just like Bitcoin is). Same with diamonds. Their functional value is relatively small in comparison to their "beauty" and scarcity values.
“Rosenstreich at online trading firm Swissquote said bitcoin’s surge harks to the surprises of the U.K. referendum on European Union membership and President Trump’s election. “We have underestimated the populist movements,” he said. “There is growing unease on how central banks and governments are managing fiat currencies. Ordinary people globally understand why a decentralized asset is the ultimate safe haven.”” Th…
I believe people often trot out the 'actual worthlessness' of fiat currency, to support a misguided idea that btc must be the democratic antidote which will free countless millions from the financial enslavement of the global financial machine.
Currency is currency BECAUSE its sponsored by government. And the payments system only works because you are indemnified. By the FDIC. By Chase Credit Cards. That is, the evil banks. How so for btc?
BTC hits 10k while US readies to pass tax overhauls to increase an already alarming wealth inequality. Freedom fighters should pick the right battles.
The most remarkable aspect of bitcoin is that if Satoshi is a single person, it's the first time in history someone has become a billionaire by themselves. It's not quite that clear cut, but it's not too far off.
I don't follow. By themselves means? If he wants a billion dollars he still needs someone to trade it from somebody willing to trade with Bitcoin. How is that different from Bill Gates?
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It's considered to be beautiful because it's expensive and valued. The causation is in the other direction than most people think when it comes to gold and beauty. It's the same with expensive paintings. A painting is considered to be beautiful (some are actually ugly) and have some deep meaning only after it's sold for a lot of money.
This is an interesting topic. I too thought most of this "throw paint onto a canvas and charge rich suckers thousands of dollars" is bullshit. But after seeing some Picassos IIRC, I realized, yes there is a method to the madness. Even if the painting wasn't displayed in a fancy museum, I think I would still have thought it was "special". But those "artists" that pour paint onto the canvas - complete bullshit. If a fi…
Reason: it's complicated. But something that's DEFINITELY required for this to be possible is scarcity. The artist is not alive any more. It would never sell for that much if he were still alive.
True digital scarcity is a hard problem to solve (because computers are good at copying things). Bitcoin was the first system that was able to solve this problem.
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Let me try to make the case for why Bitcoin could be a useful beyond greed. I can't really think of many reasons why you would use crypto to pay for a coffee or a sandwich if you live in the West (or frankly, even most developing nations). On the other hand, I can definitely see the utility in a censorship-resistant digital medium to store wealth. To me, this latter use case has much, much more potential to serve the…
There is absolutely nothing that would prevent a government outlawing and criminalizing bitcoin at any point in time. With one stroke of a pen government can outlaw owning bitcoins or performing any transactions in bitcoins. I'd say this is bound to happen eventually with certainty because no government would be willing to lose control on currency (especially ability to pull it out of thin air) and thereby the power…
I don't believe that's true. The US dollar is only mandatory for two things: for settling debts (the lender must accept USD to extinguish debt) and for paying taxes. Otherwise people are free to trade as they please - euros, chickens, whatever.
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Well so far it has none of the taxpayer-subsidized funding as the US currency and banks have--which are very expensive to fund. The 2008 crisis was estimated to cost around $9,000-35,000 per US citizen, even by the Fed itself! For just that one incident...
Exactly. Who is going to bail out the first big BTC crisis? No one.
Now I don't mean to be patronizing, but it is useful for us to ask ourselves, "how were we convinced that this was desirable?"
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Tether hyperinflation. Edit: I should clarify. Bitfinex printed 95 million worth of tether in the last two days , and used it to buy btc. When your prices are denominated in Monopoly money, the sky is the limit.
This is the story that's missing here. When one of the major exchanges is starting to look insolvent and USDT is getting scarier and scarier by the day, a flight from USDT into Bitcoin is not surprising...
7 years ago: The first bitcoin article on HN with comments! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1532670 One of the posters says the feds will shut it down. I also thought this too. This remains one of the most enduring mysteries of Bitcoin to me. Why has the government taken such a hands off approach?